Gaspare De Vito Saxophonist // Flautist // Composer

“The triumph of the sound and the rhythm in their genuine nature and simplicity, the passage of revolutionary music languages and primordial roots which have fostered and still keep alive the desire for musical experimentation and investigation within the culture of the meeting, yesterday in the name of Miles, Roscoe Mitchell, Don Cherry, Ornette, today in the name of Steve Coleman, William Parker, Rob Mazurek and Gaspare De Vito.”

Olindo Fortino · Sound Contest

“De Vito reveals the excellence of inspiration in his long transparent and never rough solos. Between Santeria and Post Coltrane jazz.”

Piercarlo Poggio · Blow Up

“For once, it is possible to deal with the past and some noble inspirations, by staying true to his strong personality and his talent to create a jazz record without autopilot, as it too often happens.”

Gianpaolo Cristofaro · Audiodrome

“His music is intriguing personal and peacefully composed. De Vito's compositions shine as well as his improvisatory vein and the bright sound research of all four characters. A little gem. ”

Marco Maiocco · Giornale della Musica

“Melodically charming, rhythmically unusual, with a composition vein that is as simple as it is formally exemplary, Passing Notes is a disc in which the musicians are able to achieve such an executive harmony that covers the work with a deep spirituality. ”

Vincenzo Roggero · All About Jazz Italia

“An outstanding melodic appeal and a great instrumental and compositional expertise, but most of all the fruits of an extraordinary music personality.”

Sergio Paquandrea · Jazz It

“This disc is not background music to be held in a bookcase, but it's required the same focus as for the music of Don Cherry, Steve Coleman and Adam Rudolph. Africa may be the genesis while Cuba may be home, but Italy has become a playground for Gaspare De Vito's Jazz.”

Mark Corroto · All About Jazz USA

“His jazz is bloody, gritty, exciting, never predictable and with intense ethnic colours. In fact, starting from the first three tracks you have the distinct feeling that De Vito wants to guide his listener to a transcontinental journey on which stands the leader's alto sax, in tension between Ornette Coleman and Archie Shepp”

Vincenzo Giorgio · Musica Jazz

Biography

Saxophonist, flautist and composer, born in Naples in 1978.
He studied with Gianluigi Troversi, Eugenio Colombo and musical composition with Giancarlo Schiaffini.
Fundamental to his music education were the meetings with Steve Grossman and Greg Osby. He has always been fascinated by the freedom which marks both the music practice and the sound research.
He has his singular concept about the instrumental and compositional research which has led him to be appreciated by critics and audiences for his original music language.
He can perform both visceral solos and pianissimo through an exploration which proceeds to the summary of the several souls that populate his musical world, starting from his Neapolitan and Mediterranean roots to be then contaminated by Hip-Hop in his early teens, going through Funk, Jazz, Cuban traditional music, up to the tradition of South of the Africa.

He has worked with musicians such as Butch Morris, Alvin Curran, Tristan Hosinger, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Eugenio Colombo, Francesco Bearzatti, Fabrizio Puglisi, Vincenzo Vasi, Nicola Guazzaloca, Pasquale Mirra, Marco Dal Pane, Luisa Cottifogli, Maisha Grant and many more. He has performed at many international festivals like Clusone Jazz Festival, Jazz In it, Sant’arcangelo Jazz Festival, Paradiso Jazz, Jazzy Jam, Cassero Jazz Festival, Dozza Jazz, Crossroads, Angelica Festival, Trentennale del Treno di Cage to name the most famous ones only. He has played with numerous bands as a leader and session-man in Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Finland, Sweden and Estonia.
In 2007 he was voted among the best Italian saxophonists and in 2008 he came seventh in the annual referendum for best new talent organised by Musica Jazz.
He is co-founder of Suoniforme label.

5 Song and 1 Story

Making a debut as a solo artist is not for everyone. Saxophonist and flautist, Gaspare De Vito, has expressive honesty and courage and uses five songs and a story to show it: a musician with a varied background - ranging from collaboration with Giancarlo Schiaffini to overseas experience with several African musicians – De Vito seems to have “metabolized” the different languages into a single instrumental sound which is, at once, disturbing and inquiring.

Passing Notes

What would happen if Ornette was sunbathing in Cuba? Maybe Passing Notes.
Entirely composed and arranged by Gaspare De Vito, “Passing Notes” is inspired by the tradition of improvised jazz and the sacred rhythms of Cuban “regla de ocha” fused together to make a surprising new sound. The cyclical rhythms of “regla de ocha” mixed with the unusual harmonic/melodic texture of the improvised tradition; old opposites meet and the path to connect them is revealed.

Deep

Noise, Breath, Voice, Electricity, Melody are the five energies that characterize the poetry of this project. It is a slow, immersive discovery of the complex nature of simplicity - a strong melodic impression which periodically transforms as it abandons its own contours and hides among its own noises, breaths, and developments. This audible dimension is encompassed in Giulio Maulini's opera "Pentaenergie su base antisismica", and thus a dialogue is opened between Form and Sound - which for us is essential.